kishu is very much worthwhile

[brian]

I understand that Kishu mandarins have a reputation for being tasty but too small for commercial cultivation.  I don't quite understand this, as they aren't really smaller than most of the mandarins sold as clementines/cuties/halos/whatever.   They are consistently seedless, excellent tasting, and very easy to peel. 

This are definitely one of my favorite varieties of the citrus I've grown, and they are quite productive even in a container. 


They are ripe when green-yellow for me, and are approaching overripeness by the time they are fully orange

Here's the ones I just picked, with a typical persian lime for size comparison

[slopat]

Concur on how tasty Kishus are. Locally good here but the ones I buy at farmer's market, seller from Exeter California,  are a little bit sweeter. CalPoly has enough for Upick and at Von's 'shop local' and farmer's.  I have a 10+ year old pixie that I am really considering top working or approaching with a Kishu. Normally I like to peel the segments but for the Kishu I peel and just take off the white and eat a dozen  

My kids like them too and daughter keeps asking why i didn't plant them. 🙃   although Owari Satsuma remains my top favorite, dried rinds for cooking too  

[brian]

Owari is very similar to Kishu, it was one of my favorite mandarins but mine died for some unknown reason.  I haven't bothered to replace it because the Kishus are close enough

[EricSC]

brian,

Since you are away from most citrus communities, it is worth to try clementine.   It is easily available from HD.   Its fruits have a richer and sweeter taste than Owari, easy peel and with no seed if not cross polinated by Lemon, grapefuit, valency, etc.

To me, we all like clementine better than Owari, but to keep the bees off is a little bit of work.

[sc4001992]

i agree with you Brian, I really like the small kishu fruits, easy to peel, always seedless and can just eat the whole fruit at once.  My kishu doesn't give much fruits sometimes so I'm grafting more now on all my trees so I can get more of these fruits. I like the meiwa, nagami, marumi kumquats as well for small size fruits but I don't seem to get a lot of fruits on these kumquats since they are in pots.

This is a photo of a friends Kishu tree, my goal is to get one of my trees to look like it with hundreds of fruits.

[drymifolia]

This is a photo of a friends Kishu tree, my goal is to get one of my trees to look like it with hundreds of fruits.

Do you know what rootstock that used? I ordered some kishu scions from CCPP and that's basically the exact size and shape I'm hoping mine will eventually be in the corner of the greenhouse, and I assume rootstock choice will impact final size.

I have lots of extra key lime seedlings, so was thinking I'd try those as rootstocks since they've done ok in the greenhouse this winter. I also have a Pixie and TDE3 (Tahoe Gold), both on trifoliate, and might make one of them a multi-graft instead. I have Meiwa grafted on a lime seedling, but I would rather not add another variety to that.

[sc4001992]

i don't know the rootstock on the Kishu. It's an old tree, over 15yrs, and when I trimmed it back for them it looked like the rootstock was a dwarf. It could be on Flying Dragon but I don't know.

Trifoliate (semi-dwf) rootstock should be fine, the Kishu branches do not grow fast, has dense branches, and if you let it hold all the fruits then it will not grow that tall from the graft union. You can always trim the long branches to keep it to a reasonable size.